Winter-weary Drivers Face New Road Woes

It's Time Again To Tear Up Streets

February 27, 1994|By Gary Washburn, Tribune Transportation Writer.

Seems like just yesterday-and maybe it was-drivers were crawling down expressways through a blinding, slippery snowstorm. And this week, they can start crawling down expressways past lanes closed for construction.

It's road repair time. Only a traffic engineer could call it spring, but city and suburban officials will dig out streets and highways so they can start digging them up to try to cram as much work as possible into a construction season too short for what needs to be done.

The final year of Kennedy Expressway rehabilitation, to resume Friday, is only one of several major projects planned for Chicago's most heavily traveled thoroughfares. Two other expressways are scheduled to go under the jackhammer, and they'll be joined by two toll roads and stretches of two interstate highways.

Then there are the projects on major arterial streets all over the six-county area, more than 200 in all, that promise varying degrees of vexation for motorists.

And Chicago is planning what may be the biggest residential street repair effort in its history: 250 miles of side streets, 5 miles in every ward, will be resurfaced.

Once more, drivers will trade the misery of winter snow and ice for the exasperation of closed lanes, traffic jams, blaring horns and hot tempers.

And once again, the most pensive among them will ponder how something as delightful as spring can signal the start of something so awful.

For Kennedy regulars, lane closures are about to begin as the monumental job of rebuilding the 7.5-mile stretch between downtown and the Edens Expressway enters its final phase.

With the reversible lanes and inbound lanes completed, crews this season turn their attention to the outbound side.

Preparatory work will begin Friday, weather permitting, and lane closures are scheduled to last until Oct. 31, ending 3 years of misery that have felt like 10.

Outbound motorists will use the reversibles and two of the outbound local lanes (as crews labor on the other two local lanes), with four lanes open during all peak travel times.

The major exception will be in Hubbard's Cave, the long tunnel at the south end of the work zone, which promises to be a major choke point. Only three lanes will be open to traffic during most of this season, and just two during a two-week period in May.

The closures here are designed to reduce traffic as it enters the construction zone, and crews also will take the opportunity to install new tile on the tunnel's walls. The old tile was damaged by water and subsequently removed after the infamous freight tunnel flood in downtown Chicago two years ago.

Besides new pavement that is intended to last for at least three decades, Kennedy motorists will get a variety of improvements.

A fifth outbound lane will be added between Addison Street and the Edens Junction to help reduce congestion produced by the high number of entrances and exits in this stretch. And when work is finished, drivers for the first time will be able to enter the outbound reversible lanes directly from the Ohio-Ontario feeder and exit from them directly onto the Kennedy's leg to O'Hare Internatinal Airport.

A $14 million automated system also will be installed to control traffic flows through the reversible lanes.

The current operation relies on Illinois Department of Transportation "minutemen" who reverse the flow twice a day, moving 140 barrels each time.

The new system, with a series of aluminum swing gates at the six reversible entrance ramps, is expected to save $1.5 million a year in operating costs. Any car that goes through closed gates will be stopped by a restraining net similar to those used on aircraft carriers.

As if Kennedy motorists already won't have enough to contend with, plans this year also call for resurfacing the expressway's O'Hare leg between Lawrence Avenue and River Road in a project expected to run from July 5 to October. The good news here is that lane closures are scheduled only for off-peak hours.

"The intent is to shape the (expressway) up all the way from downtown to the airport so that folks don't have to hear about the Kennedy for the next 10 years," said Duane Carlson, IDOT's Chicago area chief. Doing the resurfacing when some motorists are avoiding the expressway anyway because of the reconstruction makes sense, he asserted.

To the south, deteriorating pavement on the Dan Ryan Expressway will bring crews from April to June to the stretch between 63rd Street and Interstate Highway 57. Lane closures will only be at night.

Then there's the Stevenson, more commonly known in the last few weeks as the "Crumbling Stevenson" because of a proliferation of potholes and serious pavement deterioration.